Best carne asada taco in Southern California!

   When it comes to Mexican food, you might call me a foodie. What the heck, call me a foodie!

   There is no in-between about the delicious south of the US border food. For, it's either you love it or you hate it. Admit it, you either crave it or you don't care too much about it. Mexico is big and there are regional dishes, I am sure I have never tasted, but I would venture to say  there is nothing like a real good taco. Okay, okay, a carne asada burrito and a chimichanga ties in second place.

   With very good ingredients and a very good cook, what is there not to love about the taco. I like them with pork, beef, chicken (well, maybe not that one!) but I think with just the right salsa and zanahorias (carrots) pickled and spicy with jalapeno..wow! what a meal.

   I see that a lot of people view my blog and they come from all over the place but somehow they are shy to have their comments posted. Well, let me see if in search of a very good taco, my readers or a reader will dare have their comment posted just to get the name of the Best Taco place in Southern California revealed via a private message. Dare, double dare!

   I have a picture to show how juicy the beef and have you drooling over it. It tastes great and at a very good price (inexpensive and worth to the last cent). Thank you R for this lunch!

   Enjoy! Buen provecho!

Beef, onions, cilantro and all these meshed together in flavor creates for a very good taco.  

The best munchies

   I do not have a sweet tooth. I have a sweet body!!

   I turn into this little girl all mooshy and giddy when I start talking about munchies. And to qualify what I mean by munchies, I do not mean chips only. Munchies to me covers all food groups, including ice cream (dairy). This is just things I love to eat. I am an all opportunity for anything sweet. Let me count the ways...

There is the never-fail-to-quench my craving for chocolate..the good ol' Toblerone. What is not to love with this European-made nougat-filled and choco heaven. Delicious! A must have in any purse.

For pies, banana cream pie is somewhere up at the very top of the list. It has fruit that is good for you. The crunch of the crust and silky smooth cream with the sweet banana and in this case (as always the case for me) I request coconut bits to top it.

For cheesecake, I try to have what vegetable they have in season, and during this time of the year pumpkin is everywhere, so pumpkin cheesecake it is, and double it just to make sure I get my fill of it.

And for those hot days and cold afternoons, I would get a nice single scoop of ice cream and it must have the strong flavor of fudge choco and almond pieces with a piece of cookie on top. We all scream for ice cream!

   Please be advised that all the photos posted here are my own pictures. And I have consumed with immense enjoyment the munchies pictured and featured here.

  We continue...

For something healthy, I go for the hummus (spicy) with quinoa chips. Protein galore. There is just something that makes you think you are on a healthy diet when you eat hummus. But in all honesty, it tastes good and good for you. You can never go wrong with this combo. But when you say munchies, it has that connotation that it has to be unhealthy or something, right? But, not the case on this.

And last but never the least - the tiramisu. I think of all the desserts that I have tasted THIS particular tiramisu is the best, EVER! I enjoy this so much I never tire of having it.

  Munchies, might be the exact word to use for these, but more like favorite sweets fits the bill. But I will go for munchies. I also love soups, salad and cakes. See told you, not a sweet tooth but a sweet body, now that is a precise description of me.

I hope you enjoyed perusing my sweet all time fave list. Have a great week everyone.

See you another day. Take care everyone.

My favorite things (well, some of it!) for 2012

   It is official, December 2012 is here! And in hopes of starting a new tradition here, I will share some of my favorite things.  This will give you a glimpse of the kinds of things I like, buy, use and enjoy.

   I do not do hauls on this blog (I do not post what I buy or what I had amassed throughout the year) but for a change let me share what works for me and what I think are really worth the money (hard earned). I am not saying you will like them like I do, but give it some thought if you are looking some quality items to give to friends (girls) and for yourself should you want to splurge, a bit.

   Let me start with an all-time favorite room deodorizer. I love the Bath and Body Works concentrated room spray, the 1.5oz Signature Collection. They made a lot of scents on their limited edition room spray but I only liked 2 of them. Namely, Japanese Cherry Blossom and the Black Amethyst. It is just so ME! I love the staying power of the spray and yet it is never overpowering if you just give the room a quick one spray; no more than that. I have reserves since they discontinued this the very next year they came out with it. And so far, nothing of their recently released Collection caught my fancy.

Now, we come to my favorite part, cosmetics.

  

Okay, what you see here are my GO-TO products for 2012. Since I have been living out of a suitcase most of this year (travel alot) most of these are travel sizes and TSA approved measurements and quantity.

Let me list them: Murad SPF-30 travel-size sunscreen, 2 MAC lipsticks (one creme, the other a VIVA GLAM), MAC lustreglass, REVLON limited edition lilac lipgloss, Burt's Bees lipbalm, Covergirl LASHBLAST mascara, limited edition KATE lipstick, MAC Zoom Lash Mascara travel-size, STILA limited edition lipgloss, NIVEA (blue tin, original ones made from Germany) moisturizer,  L'Occitane hand cream, AVON limited edition quad-eyeshadows, Concealer by Benefit (Erase Paste) and the ever present in my purse Juicy Couture Viva La Juicy Eau de Parfum 7ml travel size rollerball..

I have other faves but these are the staples that I travelled with this year. I try to change things abit every year to keep them fresh and new to me, especially the parfum part. I like to surprise R with some new ones everytime I am with him. Sometimes he likes one more than another. Right, R?

Well, I have given you a quick peek into my makeup kit and you know tomorrow, being officially December, I might just change things around and by the end of the year, I am sure I will have new faves for 2013.

Stay safe everyone and so far November has been a blast for me. I love letting you in and see my world (or a little of it). I am a girly-girl no doubt. I like things that remind me that deep down, I like true beauty from  within but it never hurts to look pretty outside and smell very good as well. And feeling pretty is just a bonus.

Have a great weekend everyone and see you in December! That's tomorrow...

Maybe next year I will post something that will tell you where in the world (exactly) I am at this time..well,maybe...

Have fun. Be safe.

Until tomorrow for it will be another day......

  

My lunch with Sister

   Today was a special day for Sister and I. We haven't seen each other in close to 12 weeks and there is alot to tallk about. Sister stuff!

   We always start with a nice meal, then coffee, then more talking until she has to go back to work. And I head home.

    So today, we had a change of venue. We had planned to go to another favorite place but that place was closed due to renovation and no parking for me. So we opted for another place - good choice! Good burgers. (see photo)

Sister had the House burger topped with coleslaw, a side of fries and we both had a can of coke.

I had the cheeseburger topped with mushroom sauce and mushroom bits, a side of fries (very good!) and I had a can of coke because sadly, they did not have Pepsi.

I will not speak about what I had with my coffee for the muffin was so good I forgot to take pictures!! What?!! Yeah, I gobbled that thing up so fast, I forgot to reach for my camera.

Enjoy. I hope you like the photos. I had fun consuming this burger.

Happiness is a state of mind

   I have been feeling my heart smile more, lately.
  

  There are days that I still feel down and blue but they are now so rare. I try and make an effort to be happy, each day. It is never easy when I remember how raw I felt a few months back, but I am certain the road to recovery is paved with bright smiles and lighter heart. I am so blessed to have TRUE friends around me when I feel like I am spiralling down the "dark road" again. It helps to have people to remind me that to avoid any trigger factors is the best way to go.

   Hope is a very good thing, maybe even the best thing. And good things never die.

   There are wonderful things in my future and I would like to focus on those. But inevitably since healing a broken heart is not just an on-off switch, some days are still tougher than others. Tears are elusive now, and I am grateful to some very good people in my "new" life. I am so forever grateful and thankful for the "new" me. I did not think I had it in me to be the person I am now. I underestimated the power of self in me. And I like it. I feel lighter each day when I wake up and I tell myself, this is the best day of my life.

   Work keeps me busy. People keep me busy but I always make time to be with family and friends when I am in the mountains. They keep both my feet firmly planted on the ground when they say things as they see it, and never tiptoe around issues about me. There is one friend in particular and she knows who she is. I am one to dispel coincidences and I believe she came back in my life after years of absence because she makes a big difference in the way I see other people. One can get jaded about life when your heart has undergone some black and heavy clouds.

   Happiness is a choice. I used to believe happiness is where one is when things are just going great and going one's way. But I know now that there is happiness in everything, even during the worst of times. When after a bad situation you learn a new thing or two about yourself that good times will otherwise not provide you, there is a reason to rejoice. Happiness is not something another person can give you. You make yourself happy and spread happiness. You can only be happy if the people around you are happy. When you get to be my age, happiness is in little things. Happiness is when R and I are two-gether, when my father stops coughing, when the farmwork is running without a glitch, when a little member of my family calls me by a term of endearment, when the sunshine is bright and the day is not so hot, when an old friend come to visit, little things.

   Some people might say, that happiness is a goal but they are never really willing to make the sacrifices nor invest the effort then it is a long and cold way to get there.

   I live for the people I love. And that makes me happy. During tough and dreary times, I tell myself being unhappy never solves anything. One might have a problem but never let the problem have you, I say.

   The holidays are upon us and I would like to encourage everyone to help and cheer up those that are less fortunate than us. There are people out there that have more problems and almost helpless to do anyting. We cheer them up and the spiritual reward of that is a soul fulling happiness. And I am not talking about just presents.

   At times when we forget that happiness is now not something that we will get delivered tomorrow.

   Happiness is looking at the glass as half full never as half empty.

   Think about it...

   Have a safe weekend everyonne.

  

  
  

  

  

     

Miso Kitchen in Narita Airport (Japan)

   In Narita Airport Japan, after disembarking from the plane to catch my international connection, I had to go through an inspection to transfer from one terminal (arrival) to the next one (departure area). This is done without leaving the airport. It was a very short walk to get to the series of gates for my assigned boarding area. My flight from LAX arrived late in the evening but the Duty-free stores were packed with customers.

   After locating my assigned gate area, I took a short walk around the terminal and found a quaint japanese restaurant. I could swear this place looked alot like the japanese restaurant where R and I would frequent in California. The place was semi-filled with people. People having a beer, some ramen or just like me, having a glass of soda. Be warned, the prices here are high. In everything, but since I promised R that I will not have anything to eat (without him) I opted to just sit there and nurse my soda. The server and cashier were so nice.

  Before I walked into the Miso Kitchen restaurant, I looked at their display window of the dishes that they offer. Mostly ramen and typical japanese dishes..you name it they had it. The window samples were made so life like that I thought the slices of pork on top of the ramen were steaming.

   I have posted the pictures I took to share that part of my trip with you all. Japanese food, I will miss that for awhile, but I have these photos to look at should I want to torture myself (hehehe...)

The menu...

                                       Window display of the dishes Miso Kitchen offers

A closer look of one of the combination plates in Miso Kitchen

The ramen did look very good and tempting. The edamame (soy peas) looked so real (though I knew they were plastic).

  

   I loved taking these photos in hopes of sharing it here on my blog. The best part about travelling with a very good and handy phone is that I take pictures then and there and I get to post it here and once in awhile someone sees it and appreciates them as much as I did.

   Have a good week everyone.